Best Hot Sauce Selection (2012)

Tucked inside the Original Farmers Market, between a French restaurant and a jewelry store, there's a tiny retail space that sells hundreds of varieties of a single condiment: hot sauce. Light My Fire also sells gift sets and snacks, along with a few other related items such as mustard, salsa and BBQ sauce. But hot sauce is the shop's specialty, with a selection that includes bottles of Devil Juice Hot Sauce, Ass in the Tub, Dead Man Hot Sauce and Day of the Dead Chipotle Hot Sauce, most with colorful and sometimes scatological labels to match their vivid names. Each bottle is ranked from 1 to 10 on the store's proprietary heat-meter scale, which is much easier to understand than the Scoville scale — the customary way to measure a pepper's piquancy. At Light My Fire, 1 to 4 is "Wimpy," while 5 to 7 is "Nice 'n' Spicy" and 8 to 10 is a "Pleasant Burn." There are also "Beyond Hot" and "Off the Charts," but if you purchase something from the last two categories, be prepared to sign a hot sauce disclaimer. (Really.) 6333 W. Third St., #230-#234, Fairfax District. (323) 930-2484, hotsaucetogo.com.